It is well known that field curing of hay is accelerated by turning the swath in such fashion as to place the down side of the swath upwardly so as to expose it to fair weather. Many types of machines have evolved for the purpose of turning, spreading and inverting the hay, such as tedders, side rakes, dump rakes and the like. More recently, special swath inverters have been developed which, if properly designed and operated, have many advantages over prior tedding and raking practices.
According to the present invention, a properly designed swath inverter is provided in the form of a mobile frame adapted to advance over a field of hay previously harvested and left lying in swath fashion, for example, on the field. The machine may be typically drawn by a tractor and carries a pick-up mechanism of such width as to straddle a swath so as to pick up the swath bodily from the field as a ribbon or mat and to deliver such ribbon rearwardly to a transfer area for entry onto a cross conveyor whose length is oblique to the line of advance so as to lead to a discharge zone disposed both laterally outwardly and rearwardly of the pick up Moving belts on the conveyor terminate in discharge ends that are staggered along a line disposed at an obtuse angle to the oblique disposition of the cross conveyor so that the swath ribbon, upon engagement with the ground or stubble of a previous swath, becomes inverted as the machine advances, whereby the down side of the swath ribbon becomes its top side and is thus exposed to fair weather elements.
It is a feature of the invention that the swath ribbon is narrowed in width as respects the width of the picked-up ribbon as it turns the corner at the transfer area so that the inverted swath is narrower than the swath yet to be picked up. In this respect it is also a feature to provide means for increasing the width of the swath ribbon as it leaves the belts at the discharge zone.
A further feature resides in arranging the swath-conveying belts on the cross conveyor in side-by-side relation with only running clearance between neighboring belts, an arrangement which moves the swath ribbon efficiently and without a waste of energy and loss of leaves.
A significant feature flows from the staggered arrangement of the discharge ends of the belts along a line that provides a natural angle of inversion of the swath ribbon without tearing or otherwise disturbing the nature of the ribbon, whereby the leaves are sheltered from shattering during inversion and are further shaded by the stems from direct rays of the sun when deposited onto the field.
Further features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those versed in the art as a preferred embodiment of the invention is disclosed in the ensuing description and accompanying drawings